do you? why not add your miracles too?

Monthly Archives: January 2010

Recently I was interviewed about On My Own Now Ministries. I prepared for the interview in one step: pray. After all, I know OMON like the back of my hand, so all that was left was to ask God to guard my mouth and not let me say anything that I wasn’t supposed to, and conversely, that what I would say be according to His will.

I was in town at the appointed hour of the interview, so I sat in my car alone and received the call on my cell – I had four bars. Everything was going pretty well – the interviewer, Mike, asked questions that gave me plenty of room to share some good stuff. We had been talking for about 45 minutes and I was feeling pretty comfortable. Was his plan to lure me into a sense of wellbeing and openness before he dropped a bomb on me? In an unexpected instant, he became the hard-hitting journalist and asked, “How is your marriage?”

Did he say “how long have you been married?” “How is my marriage?”

“Yes, how is your marriage?”

“Hmm. Interesting question.” Pregnant pause. “Let me say first of all that I have a good marriage and a happy marriage… but it’s not as good as it could be. And this wouldn’t be any surprise for my husband to read, he’s in it too. Probably a lot of what we are working through is consequences of my past, and his past too. Mike, are you hearing this echo? Mike? Hello?”

I looked down at my cell and realized the call had dropped. Gads! Of all times to lose a call! He called me back and same thing – an echo – and then I lost the call within seconds. What had happened? Across the street my pastor and his son happened to be working on a house. I ran over and asked if I could use one of their cell phones. “What’s the matter, do you have an echo?” he asked.

Oh, no! It wasn’t me. We decided it had to do with the tower. So I hopped in my car and starting driving to the next nearest tower. Along the way I thought, OK, this could be good. I can have a chance to think through what I was going to say. And so I did rehearse my answer a little. That next nearest tower didn’t work, so on to the next. By this time, 20 minutes had passed and I was wondering if Mike was thinking I was avoiding the question by playing that “crshhh – what?-You’re-breaking-up!-I can’t-hear-crshhh-you” bit. I hated looking like I was dodging the question that way.

When I finally got free of the echo and got through to Mike’s office, I got his voicemail. While I was driving around trying to find a clear signal, it came time for Mike to enter Tuesday morning prayer meeting at his work, which is why I got his voicemail.

We finished the interview about three hours later. I don’t know if God spoke to him during that prayer meeting or He didn’t need to because the opportunity had passed, but when Mike picked up the interview again, he started with, “Tell me about your husband – what does he do?” And we never worked our way back to the subject of my marriage.

I’ll admit I was very irritated by the whole ordeal and thought, Why me! But with just a little reflection, I realized that I was interrupted just at the right time. In the interest of full disclosure/honesty and because I’m such a rookie, I’m sure I would have been much too forthcoming about my marriage. Inquiring minds may want to know, but does that mean they should? Thank God He put a gag order on me in the form of technical difficulties at just the right moment.